*Amber PoV*

It hurt.

All her senses were colored by pain and agony.

The world was muted as if to let her focus only on those very things.

How cruel.

*thump*

Hear heart was drumming in her ears, every beat getting weaker and weaker.

How did she end up like this.

She only wanted to get away.

To get away from the danger.

To get away from this war spanning eons in the shadows.

To be safe.

To be happy.

She never asked for any of this.

*...thump*

She had been travelling, away from Vale and away from Ozpin and his machinations. Away from safety like an idiot.

She hadn't a clue where she would go when she set out, only that she was sure she could figure it out on the road.

Fool.

She had been ambushed.

Tricked by an illusion of a young girl on the road who seemed hurt and then as she went to help she found herself ambushed by 3 people.

She gave it her all, using her semblance, her years of training, and her power of magic granted by being the Fall Maiden.

It didn't matter.

At every step when focusing on one opponent another would step into her blind spots and attack, and even if she held them both back the third would snipe at her from afar.

Unable to focus even on a single opponent.

Unable to watch her own back.

Unable to win against the unfair odds.

Unable to fight back as the woman with black hair used some type of Grimm like worm thing from her arm.

Unable to scream even as she suddenly it felt as though her very self being was ripped apart. Her very being torn asunder.

Ember laid on the ground, her body twitching with pain until the all encompassing pain was replaced by a deep, wrong, cold.

*...thump*

With that her heart beat its last and Ember died, afraid, in pain, alone, and cold.

In another life she would have lived for a bit longer, her life saved by a dusty old crow.

In this life the crow was nowhere to be seen.

*Qrow PoV*

The cup of tea he was holding cracked and spilled the delicious but scalding substance all over himself.

"Yowwwch!"

He let out a wail of pain even as the old man across from him glared. Whether from spilling such good tea or breaking one of his cups is unknown, but certainly not out of concern for him.

"Another cup? I hope you know these are very expensive and-"

"and I'll be replacing every single cup I break. Yeesh at least attempt to act concerned for me." Qrow drawled.

"Hmph" Responded the old man.

Qrow simply sighed as he cleaned up the mess and wondered how he ended up like this.

Actually no he didn't wonder.

He knew perfectly well and it was some bullshit.

*Flashback*

"Qrow for this mission you will need to be completely undetectable." Said Ozpin after giving him a brief overview into why he was about to spy on this guy.

"Yeah yeah, nothing new Ozpin." He spoke

Ozpin sighed and massaged his temples making Qrow grin. It was somewhat fun to get under Ozpin skins considering how rare that was.

"Qrow I need you to understand the severity of the situation. This individual is possibly one of if not the most lethal man on the planet right now. You and I are not out of his reach even now." Ozpin explained trying to hammer in the seriousness of his assignment.

'Sheesh no pressure then' Qrow thought to himself as he gave Ozpin a serious nod letting him know he was well heard.

Ozpin sighed and gave him a few parting word. "Make sure to be in your avian form at all times, because if you get caught I don't think there will be a rescue team strong enough to bail you out. With that said may the brothers watch over you."

With that goodbye that honestly felt like bad omen to him Qrow set off away from Beacon and towards the house where the Spec Ops team disappeared to.

A few hours later in the noon as he was arriving towards the location he heard the sound of combat nearby and went to investigate.

Landing among the trees he looks down at a clearing filled with a few people. It was the spec Ops team! Ozpin was going to be glad to know they were still alive. Not doing well considering their very beat up and disheveled states as they lay scatter about the clearing, but alive! His luck was rarely ever this good.

Qrow then he froze as he saw the old man staring straight at him.

'What the fuck?' Qrow shot off a curse in his head as the old man seemed to basically hold eye contact with him.

Tension was rising within Qrow. What if this old man knew somehow? What if he was compromised right here right now? Should he book it? Could he even get away?

The tension bled out of him when a voice from one of the Operatives asked the old man a question and he turned away from Qrow to answer him.

'Damn that felt way too close for no reason. I'm way too on edge.' Qrow thought to himself as he rationalized that obviously no the old man didn't know he was a person. It would be foolish to immediately look at a bird and think yes that's a human right there. He chastised himself and told him it was his nerves getting to him.

He remained perched on the tree and listened in on the conversation.

"You sure this is gonna work old man? It feels more like your beating us up for no reason that giving us training."

"I told you already. No actual training until I beat the loyalty out of you like a bad habit."

The young man frowned in confusion, but then went away to sit down on the ground in apparent exhaustion.

'Beat the loyalty out of them? Jimmy's personal attack dogs?' Qrow scoffed in his head 'As if.' he thought to himself not knowing how completely and utterly wrong he was.

This went on for a while until the sun sent at which point the old man began appearing and disappearing with the specs ops team members that were now immobile on the ground.

'What a monstrous beat down, hopefully they survive' Qrow thought privately as he bore witness to the SpecOps team massacre for hours.

He learned one essential thing.

The old man was a monster.

He didn't beat them with pure skill or speed, but instead with pure overwhelming forced. He beat them down again and again and made them get up to fight him all at once over and over.

He didn't end up with even a scratch on him and from what he could see the old man didn't even break a sweat.

Qrow wasn't sure before, but now he definitely knew. He could not afford to get caught because he would not survive fighting the old man.

Apart from that the old man had more to his semblance. When some of the members were down and out completely he would crouch next to them and his hands would glow slightly green. It was some type of healing effect from what he could tell.

He knew this was a lot of good information that would be invaluable to Ozpin.

Focusing back on the present he watched as the last of the members were carted off by the old man.

As he was readying himself to take flight towards the targets house the old man reappeared in the empty clearing.

'That's odd' Qrow thought to himself.

"You there trying to hide among the trees in the form of a bird. Come down here and explain to me your presence."

Qrows muscles all tensed. He'd been discovered!

He immediately took off from the branch and flew upwards trying to put as much distance in between him and the old man as he could.

One second he was soaring in the air and the next he was staring up at the old man from the clutches of his uncomfortably tight grip that was straining his aura.

'Fuck.' That one word explained his situation. He was fucked.

"I have learned patience throughout my many years because of this I will give you one more chance to throw away that silly disguise if yours and speak face to face. Do you understand?"

"...Yes" He answered.

With that the old man released his grip on the bird and Qrow didn't even attempt to fly away. He knew it would be pointless. He just transformed back and stared at the old man.

"Who are you and why were you watching us?"

Qrow had one chance to not end up like to Jimmy's dogs so he had to carefully think of what to say.

"My name is Qrow I'm a hunter and I was... I was sent here after your attack on General Ironwood."

The old man raised an eyebrow as if asking him to continue.

"I was also sent here to gather information to see if you would be hostile to any other kingdom leaders or political figures."

"I see. Are you with the government of one of these kingdoms then?." Spoke the old man.

"Yes, I'm here with the interests of not only Vale, but the rest of the kingdoms in mind."

"Interesting, now tell me, why should I let you leave this place alive?"

An immense pressure descended on him forcing Qrow to his knees.

The old man kept speaking even as Qrow was forced to grovel, "The way I see it, if you don't report back to your kingdom, if you disappear they won't gain any information on me and mine."

'Shit! Come on think fast Qrow!' He thought trying to come up with any good reason or excuse that would keep him alive.

After a few moments that felt far too long for him, he spoke.

"Be- Because we want peace!" He yelled out.

The pressure on him lifted ever so slightly.

"Oh? We?" said the old man as if he wasn't holding his life in his hand.

"I- We- We belong to an organization dedicated to keeping the peace. Ironwood was one of our members, but he acted without our knowledge and is being reprimanded. We mean no harm to you or yours we merely seek to resolve this in the form that results in the least casualties." Qrow ranted out.

The old man looked at him. His eyes felt as though they were piercing him and looking at him for everything he was worth.

The old man must've seen something he approved of or was at the very least acceptable, because he then said.

"Very well. Come along now. You will tell me more inside the house."

With those words the pressure was gone and the old man trekked back to the house.

All Qrow could do was follow.

*Flashback End*

With that he ended up being a guest-like figure in the household for the next few months.

The old man questioned him on many things.

From the role he played in his 'peace keeping' to the many missions he had taken part of.

Qrow was fine with all this because he had gotten in contact with Ozpin and thanks to that his mission had become a bit different in nature.

It was still to observe and watch, but he now also had the priority of befriending him and trying to see if he was trustworthy.

It naturally cut down a lot of his espionage time and other duties he had, but Ozpin and the others believed it to be a worthy trade off.

Qrow couldn't say he didn't enjoy his time here either. It was a bit like a vacation.

A vacation where you know there's a sleeping Ursa right next to you and you're doing your damnedest to not wake it up.

Still a vacation though.

Shame he couldn't drink.

The old man didn't like alcohol near the little tykes.

It was also very interesting to see the progress of the SpecOps and the progress of his student.

Frankly it was terrifying to realize that the old man had in fact beat the loyalty out of them throughout the months and now had them acting like a security force for the small family.

Then again from what he saw, you can only be folded like a lawn chair by his fist so many times before you give up.

Still onto the boy.

What a monster.

Frankly it made sense.

What type of legacy would a monstrous person leave.

Nothing other than a monstrous legacy.

The boy was strong. Almost inhumanly strong, and that was without his semblance merging his sword and shield into that weird form.

The old man had the boy fighting the entire SpecOps team solo.

He didn't win of course, but scarily enough while he was miles away from the first time they tried that, the kid just kept getting better.

A few months after he saw the old man folding the team he threw the boy at them. That kid got beat down.

He put up a good fight, but one kid versus a fucking SpecOps team was just cruel.

He let the old man know that was kinda fucked up.

He was ignored and he kept doing it.

A few months later watching his progress he understood why.

The kid was adapting. Getting Stronger, Faster, Sharper.

A rate of development that was unheard of.

Months past after their first fight and nowadays he could basically hold his own.

Everyday he was edging closer to victory against them.

What a scary thought.

"You know, a cup cracking is a bad omen where I come from." Spoke the old man bringing him out of his musings.

"Yeah? Well I'm just a bad omen in general. I already told you my semblance and this isn't the first cup cracked, why tell me this now?" Said Qrow in an amused and tired voice.

The old man sipped his cup as both of them watched the young Arc fight in the backyard against the team.

"Just something to keep in mind." He spoke.

'Mannnn.' wasn't that ominous.

Qrow was tired of these little bits and kernels of wisdom the old man kept dropping.

Some of them were similar to Mistraelian sayings, others were just really odd. Either way they were things he didn't like. The way the old man spoke to him was condescending sometimes, not in a 'I'm stronger than you' type of way, but as if he was speaking to a child.

Kind of reminded him of Ozpin on rare occasions.

Similarly he was just as hard to get to open up about his past.

His scroll rang.

He looked down at it for a few seconds.

Then he bolted out the front door.

*Hours later Ozpin PoV*

Ozpin was sat at his desk with his head resting on his hand, his hand covering his eyes. The sun was beginning to set casting the room into a warm orange glow. It would've been a beautiful sight if not for the mood.

He had made a terrible mistake.

A mistake that cost someone their life. It wasn't the first time he's made such a mistake, after all with a such a long life come many mistakes from which he could learn.

This was another such mistake. He had let Amber go off on her own. He had let her leave without fight, without problem, and without protection.

What a fool he was.

He should've had Qrow tailing her or at least be nearby in case something happened, but he didn't do that. He had prioritized fostering friendly relations with Yamamoto whose name he now knows and the Arc family. How could he not? Such a powerful person could be very useful, even if just temporarily contracted.

He had paid the price for his avarice and worse Amber had paid a far greater price.

Amber wanted out, wanted nothing to do with his inner circle and his fight against Salem. That was fine.

He would not force anyone to fight. He had done so in past incarnations, either through guilt tripping or leashing them through duty, oath, family, or something else. The times he used to do that never turned out well. Either the people he forced to fight would undermine him or they would disappear depriving him of a resource.

He had thought that he would grant Amber the small mercy of a peaceful life.

Instead he granted her a miserable death.

Qrow had been apoplectic when he had called earlier. He understood. They trusted their life to him and right now he had let them down.

He raised he head and looked at the scroll he had laying on the desk.

A picture on the scroll. Her corpse. Trails of tears on her dirtied face.

She had been crying.

...

...

...

He was boiling.

Anger didn't even begin to describe how he felt his body heat up and his blood thrum under his skin. His teeth were clenched and he would've destroyed his office already had it not been for centuries of knowing how to deal with loss.

It didn't matter how angry he was at the moment. He couldn't do anything, he had no target, no info, no trail to follow.

Salem had made her move and he had been caught unprepared. Someone paid the price and now they can't even be avenged.

This couldn't stand.

Well it was his turn to make a move.

Tapping his scroll he contacts Glynda.

"Glynda prepare a bullhead to Emag, it's time to meet our person of interest."

"...Are you sure? We still don't have any information on his past despite what Qrow has provided us, this could be very risky."

"I'm sure. This attack on Amber cannot go unanswered, we need to amass allies and bring them into the fold. Even if he doesn't join us having him wary of Salem and her machinations might helps us."

"Very well sir."

With that he stood up and set off towards the elevator.

He had been reacting to Salem for too long and while he might not be able to kill her, he could definitely make it miserable for her to even take action.

If he could get a contract or come up with some type of deal with this Yamamoto person he would be able to have someone ready to back up his allies at any time. Not only was his ability to cross great distances perfect for reinforcements, but he had access to healing and was very capable at combat.

A stray thought says that if he had been more decisive and done this earlier, maybe Amber would be alive, but if he got stuck on what he should've done and could've done Salem would've won long ago.

It was time for him to strike back.

(AN1: Sheeeeeeeeesh well i lied about posting more lmao. Leave some reviews, tell me what ya like or don't like, what you wanna see, hints, suggestions, etc. Next chapter finna see Ancient Man talking to Ancient Man, then ima probably skip forward to Beacon.)

(AN2: You know what ima give you another chapter this upcoming week. I pinky promise this time lmao)